Posted by
skep41 on Saturday, June 28, 2008 12:04:37 PM
After
our yuppie friends get done filling up the Navigator they still owe
$30,000 on , then log on to the in-dash internet stock quotes only to
watch the value of their 401k sink like a torpedoed freighter in WW2
and finally check out the sky-high prices in Whole Foods, which the
current cash crunch makes them put on the 29% interest rate credit card
they
NEED a hot steaming,
frothy latte to buck up their spirits. But, doggone it, if they use the
credit card one more time to buy a four dollar cup of coffee that four
dollars will turn into twelve dollars of principal and interest by the
time its paid off, if it ever
GETS
paid off. The walls are closing in on the office-bound middle managers
and government employees these days. They thought that they had it all
sewed up; comfortable niches in an impenetrable bureaucracy, no
layoffs, a lock-solid retirement, plenty of disposable income. Hey,
lets go across the street and grab a
dople espresso at Starbucks and rap about it, compadre!
Maybe
not. That disposable income has suddenly disappeared in a wave of
inflation that seemed to come out of nowhere. Now us free-lance and
small-business chickens have been hit by the same wave but we never
expected things to be easy and are used to battening down the hatches
and riding out the storm. I cashed in my 401k after the film industry
tanked after 9/11 and never had any illusions that the corporations I
worked for would do anything but get rid of me the minute they didnt
need me any more. But now the ugly truth is sinking in to the smug
yuppies who voted consistently for the party of Green Change that they
arent excluded from economic reality; an economic reality that might
face them with some stark choices. Not buying that $4 latte is just the
beginning. California has just adopted a job-killing, economy-crushing
'Global Warming' plan which is a signal to anyone thinking of investing
in this state to look elsewhere and is saying loud and clear to anyone
in business in this state to move somewhere else if at all possible.
Capital flight has turned a projected six billion dollar deficit into a
seventeen billion dollar one. The libs made a few noises about raising
taxes but the example of Michigan stands stark and tall; raising taxes
in a crumbling economy makes revenues go
DOWN! The
bureaucrats in this state are looking over the precipice at huge job
cuts, and not just those superfluous fireman, policemen, teachers and
road crews but even vitally important paper-shuffling loafers will be
affected. The phat pension system will be burdened by the lowering
value of all paper securities and a huge wave of people taking early
retirement.
In the novel 'Moby Dick' an insane leader stopped his
crew from looking for oil to chase a white whale, a chimera which had
no sensible relation to any reality. He used his mad passion to get his
crew to abandon their own interests and join the chase for this useless
beast. Thats where we are with Global Warming. Only one member of the
crew of the
Pequod realized the truth and at one point tried to put a harpoon through the mad skull of Ahab. Starbuck.
In
the last few days we've seen the Dems and the yuppies quail and even
back off from their decades long phobia against drilling for oil.
Chucky-Schmucky Schumer even mentioned that there was 'room for
compromise' about drilling. If that doesn't tell you how terrified the
libs are about losing this argument you just need to look at the
numbers for Starbucks this quarter. Job cuts will follow at the
fern-draped Seattle headquarters shortly, just like they will at
Boeing. People are buying a cheap thermos and a can of Folgers at
Target and brewing up their coffeee at home or drinking the industrial
coffee at the office and forgoing the flight to go see granny in Tulsa
this year. The smug lifestyle of the middle managers is coming to an
end and the dems are still chasing the White Whale of socialism instead
of hunting for oil. The Europeans are already abandoning the insane
pursuit of the White Whale of Climate Change and thinking of their
survival. Can America be far behind?